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In case any of my friends or family members actually read this Blog, please consider all Names, Characters, Places and Incidents to be the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales are entirely COINCIDENTAL...Muaaah!!
Now, really, about me: I bring the crazy wherever I go, so I've been told...I make fun of myself more than anyone else ever could.
I hate: the awkward silence in elevators, watches with no numbers, picky eaters, Cancer and legalism. I love: coffee, stalking Hugh Jackman, my Spanx, COMMENTS, sarcasm and writing: Middle Grade, NA, YA Paranormal and Urban Fantasy.

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Tuesday, September 16, 2014

My Tragic Loss of Sport-less Gloating and Glee

I may have mentioned once or twice, that sports are not, nor have they ever been, my top priority. I am not athletic in any way, shape or form. Most of you know, my exuberant top half prevents me from ever being able to complete a push up. Not that I care, but I worried for my kids. Would they want to play sports? I knew for a fact that they would not inherit any awesome athletic ability or aspirations, from me, that's for sure. And for many, many years I was able to dodge the "sports bullet" as I like to call it.

Early on Saturday mornings, I'd pass by the humid, mosquito-infested fields and I'd see all of the sucker soccer parents who were going to have to sit their swampy butts in that hot sun from 8-4, watching one miserable game after another. And I grinned like the Cheshire Cat, knowing I got to whiz on by, sipping my Starbucks latte, feeling quite privileged that my three scholars were perfectly content to pass right by that sucky field too. You see, we were on our way to much more civilized events, like Chess Club. Which meet in the air-conditioned, bug-free and always hospitable, library. I felt very lucky indeed. But for some reason, my fate all changed, last year.

To my horror, in the beginning of September, my daughter came to me and said she wanted to try out for a "team" sport. Gah!! How did sports suddenly become a priority to my little nerd? Why? What kind of evil was this? I was so afraid. Do any of you all remember my posts about the dreaded Field Day? Yeah, to say athletic ability was never our strong suit, is a total understatement.

I was petrified, but swore to support my daughter, if this is what she really wanted, no matter what. Honestly, I wasn't really prepared for what was to come. Because I never thought in a million years she would actually make the team. But she did!! Oh man was I shocked. I thought for sure I was going to be able to maintain my sport-less existence until they graduated. Not so. Not so. So where did all of this jock-itis stem from?

Although my girls have never shown any interest in team sports before, they are highly competitive and have always kept active. They love, love, love to swim and hike and they have all been involved in one form of martial arts or another. Bottom line, no matter what they are doing, (academic or otherwise) they like to WIN. In all my years of sport-less gloating and glee, I had forgotten that very important detail. Along with one other: my girls weren't just half me, but half The Husband too! They must have inherited all of this competitive drive and crap from him.

Needless to say, my transition into becoming a sports parent has not been easy. I actually have to go into jock stores now. Did you know that their store is literally called "Dicks"? From the second I walk in the door, my heels click, click, clicking on the marble floor, carrying my gigantic Ulta shopping bag, I stick out like a sore thumb. Even the stupid mannequins in that place are all jacked. Everything in there is completely foreign to me. The sales people are carbon copies of who I spent my entire high school existence avoiding. Oy. What I won't do for my kids!

As a new year and season commences, my older daughter has again, made the team. Wish me luck friends. Change doesn't come easy to this old Bird, and I am still grieving the tragic loss of my sport-less existence.

Thank the Lord, the sport she chose is indoor-volleyball! I am SO grateful and thankful for that. Still, I am so inept when it comes to sports. I am really learning as we go along. Hopefully, I won't embarrass her too much. (ha)

I really loved taking my kids to academic functions. I was so happy doing it. Now, I am relearning how to be a "sports mom". Ugh. But I will do just about anything, no matter how painful, to support them!

What? Why would anyone want to pay for someone to be mean to you at a restaurant? (I could get that free at home. Ha.) Seriously though, I would not want to eat in a restaurant where everyone is mean, on purpose!!

It's been a real eye opener, that's for sure. I can't stand how some of the parents are SO psycho sports nuts and scream at their kids like freaking lunatics. I swear one lady from the opposite team yelled at her daugher, "It's do or die!" Even The Husband couldn't help from turning around and saying to her, "Do or die, seriously? You do realize this is only a game, that twelve years old girls are playing here, right?" I'm SO out of my element, let me tell you.

Oh yeah, for sure!! There isn't much I won't do for them. And if this is what they are into, and really want to do, I'm down with it. I just have to get past my own discomfort of being a fish out of water- and try and figure out how to do this sports parent thing right!

I am SO out of my element Elizabeth it's not funny. I try my best, but as soon as I walk in the door, it's like they all know a non-athletic dork has entered the building. The jacked salesmen all come running over and are like, "CAN we help you?" The emphasis is on the can, for sure!!! LOL

Oh, sequined outfits!! How adorbs. I could get into that. I am just so lost with the athletic "look". You know, wearing knee high socks and stupid slip on style sandals. Who wears socks with slip ons and thinks that looks good? Yet, almost every single girl AND the boys I see hanging out after practice rocks that look!! I can't stand it. But I'm trying to get over the ugly styles and move on with my life of jock style acceptance. LOL

And Robert Cormier wrote I Am the Cheese - which also contained his REAL phone number. If you called it, and he was home, he'd pick up! I actually had a great conversation with him years ago. He passed away a couple of years later, though. But FADE is one of his best, along with The Chocolate War and After the First Death.

That's amazing Jay!! How freaking awesome is it that he put his phone number in there- holy crap I wish I would have known that back in the day. I LOVED I Am the Cheese. I have to place Fade on my TBR list for sure now.

Ugh. It's killing me. Even the smell of the gym makes me nauseous. All of those bad high school memories of getting hit in the head by the ball, laughed at and picked last for every team come flooding right back! Thank God, my girls are WAY ahead of where I was. And no matter what, no matter how much I hate sitting on those awful bleachers listening to all of the cray sports parents scream at their kids, I will be there too, supporting them.

Ha! See, this is why I buy my sports equipment online, because I don't have to deal with the jacked up douche bros asking me every five seconds, "Hey bro, whatchu need? What's your sport of choice, bro? Hey, can you spot me?"

You haven't seen nothing until you've seen a true "Jersey Shore" jacked up douche bag that thinks his juiced up muscles are an adequate trade off for lost brain cells. It's truly frightening. If we didn't need all of our knee pads and stuff ASAP, I would gladly cough up the extra $ for shipping, and order everything online, in order to avoid the mad douchery at Dicks. I can't even take two steps into the store, without the salespeople all swooping in on me, en masse. It's straight up painful.

They both know I am WAY out of my comfort zone. But I do my best to cheer them on, cause bottom line, they are not, nor would I ever expect them to be, carbon copies of me. I want to encourage their individuality. Honestly, I can't believe I got away with them not playing sports this long. C'est la vie.